I had heard about Bridgeclimb before we left for Oz, and it took quite some time to work out whether we could afford it. Climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge is not something a person has the opportunity to do very often, and seemed like the perfect end to our stay in Sydney. The cost was around A$120 per person, so it wasn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination. In the end I figured that I probably couldn’t afford it, but hey, why not do it anyway.

We already had an appointment today that could not be missed – the Indian Pacific Train that we would be taking to Perth at around midday. In order to climb the bridge and be at the station on time, we would have to leave the house in time to catch a 7:30am bus. I woke at 7:20am, and lazily turned to look at my travel clock. Practically leaping out of bed, I woke David and we raced to get packed and at the bus stop for half seven. I got to the stop first and the bus was already turning into the road, with David nowhere to be seen. It pulled up, doors opened, and I began to say “I’m sorry, you’d better go without me” when David shot out of the front door just in time.

I was angry with myself for sleeping late primarily because I didn’t have the opportunity to thank Deirdre and Claire for their hospitality when we left, but John (who was not accompanying David and myself) assures me that he did so.

We arrived at the bridgeclimb office with plenty of time to spare and actually ended up going on an earlier climb. We were checked in, shown a briefing video, breathalysed, passed through a metal detector, and given grey ‘bridgeclimb’ boiler suits to wear, and by this point there were already about three groups behind us. We hadn’t even left the building yet, so this operation must be making a fortune! The production-line style continued: we were issued radios, hats and gloves, and then had to walk over a scaffold rig to show we weren’t scared of heights. Then we left the building, with about five groups already behind us.

The bridge climb starts underneath the highway on the south side, where each person’s harness is attached to a static line that runs along the length of the route. We would not be able to move away from this line until it ended, even to switch positions with someone else. The first part of the route consisted of traversing a walkway which brought us to the stone buttress on the southern side. There we began to climb the ladders and stairs which brought us up first to highway level then higher still to the start of the famous long arch which spans the bridge. Finally we reached the very top of the bridge, in the centre of it’s span, and had our picture taken.

I don’t have any pictures of the bridgeclimb in this journal because I was not allowed to take a camera onto the bridge. I got one complimentary copy of a group photo, but it was printed, and I haven’t scanned it.

I think the climb was worth it overall – the guides were very good and we were given a great deal of information about the bridge, including one or two useless facts, like the fact that the bridge does not require its two stone buttresses – they are simply there for show.

We met John at the station and found our train. The Indian Pacific was to take us all the way to Perth, on the other side of Australia (about 3000 miles, I think), and the journey would take three days. Not your average backpacker’s means of transport (especially as we travelled holiday class), but it was well worth the expense. When we got on we found that the train was considerably shorter than it can be, having only two holiday class accommodation carriages, half its normal compliment. This meant that the lounge and dining cars were much less busy.